My Paper Click here to read (in Adobe Acrobat Reader) a recent p1 and p2 of the Daily Courier-Observer. I thought you might like to see it. Sure it was a slow news day but we had plenty left over after putting this puppy together. It's about 500k in size, scaled way down in resolution from what we actually use for writing to film on our imagesetters. It could be called the first online issue of the C-O. Woohoo!
If you can keep a secret, I'll occasionally post a page or two when the stories might be of interest to a few of you alumni of the C-O.
Currently we have no plans to put the paper online... we're not really staffed to do it at this point (which really means... this job would fall to me and I don't have time) and due to the demographics of our region it makes no economic sense to give away the paper or content online... Newstand sales are our bread and butter. The people that constantly ask me when we are going to put the paper online generally will concede that they wouldn't subscribe to it online though.
Aye, there's the rub.
I do like the concept of online papers and searchable archives though (for a minor fee or subscription)... For larger populations with more well educated and cyber-aware people, it makes sense to maintain a web presence and perhaps to offer a subscription based service of full content. You just can't give away the whole store for free.
I prefer the model of making your web page a teaser for the actual physical paper. Classifieds and event listings online are and perhaps the best way for a small paper to enter the online world.
In the future I'll post some links to my favorite online papers.
Now... maybe you haven't opened the pages yet and read the top story... it is best summed up by "only in the North Country." My other comments on the story aren't safe for family viewing. I had some other headlines for the story that were not printable.